RICKY Hatton emerged from a blood-soaked nightmare - and will now pursue a dream fight in Madison Square Garden.

The Hitman added the WBA's light- welterweight title belt to the IBF version he already held with a stunning ninth round knockout of sleep-walking assassin Carlos Maussa in Sheffield.

But he ended up having a total of 22 stitches in gashes above both eyes, re-awakening old fears that his tendency to cut might yet cost him as he goes in search of boxing immortality.

Sheffield plastic surgeon Mark Hobson, who left his Saturday night TV viewing after hearing of Hatton's injuries, inserted the stitches less than 90 minutes after the end of the fight, and cleared Hatton to fight again within six months.

And that is handy, because all the talk is that the Hitman is heading for New York's Madison Square Garden in May, probably to take on exciting Canadian warrior Arturo Gatti.

Hatton told M.E.N. Sport: "That would be a great fight, and there is talk of it happening in May. But my mandatory IBF title defence is due around then so I just want to enjoy Christmas and then start thinking about it after that."

Gatti, who fights Thomas Damgaard in his adopted home town of Atlantic City on January 28, had representatives at ringside in Sheffield.

Gatti is hugely popular in the States because he is an all-action fighter - his six-round defeat to Floyd Mayweather in June, for the WBC title, brought in more money than any other non-heavyweight bout in history.

A clash with Hatton would be a thrill-a-second bust-up which would attract huge interest, even though the defeat by Mayweather lessened 33-year-old Gatti's stock.

Hatton would love the chance to take on a fighter he has admired for a long time, and after the clash with Maussa - which looked like a lion taking on a threshing machine at times - he would be glad to size up a more conventional boxer.

The word "nightmare" was frequently used about Maussa in the run-up to the fight, due to his bizarre, hands-down, wide-open style which, allied to long arms and clubbing punches, presented a whole new challenge to Hatton.

Hatton's trainer Billy Graham has described Maussa as "looking like a puppet who has had a couple of his strings cut" while even the Colombian's own manager Felix Zabala admitted: "Carlos sometimes looks drunk when he is boxing."

As a result, the fight resembled a gory clip from "Dawn of the Dead", with the zombie-like Maussa refusing to lie down as Hatton hit him with everything, and took countless fists, elbows, shoulders and head-butts as he roared onto the attack.

Hatton admits the recent wrangles with former promoter Frank Warren, which are due to go to court early next year, had got to him.

"I was fighting Maussa but I was also fighting someone else in there, and was a bit too eager to put on a performance," he said. "There was some red mist around, but as the fight went on I got better and by the fifth I had started to box him more.

"But I still won every single round even though I was a bit reckless to begin with.

"The last few months have been the most difficult time of my boxing career.

"Having said that, Miguel Cotto only stopped Maussa on cuts and Vivian Harris lost to him, so I improved on both of them."

Hatton did not help himself by letting all of the pent-up frustration from his wrangles with former promoter Warren pour out in the opening rounds.

In the first minute of the fight, his eagerness had allowed Maussa to stick his angular skull in the way and the result was a slicing of the fleshy part of the eyebrow which gushed blood. That wound later required two stitches to repair the muscle inside and 13 to close the gap.

Two rounds later, there was a repeat above the left eye, but this time not as bad. It required three stitches afterwards.

Trainer Billy Graham, who has been through such moments with Hatton before, most notably when he out-fought Jon Thaxton for 12 rounds to win the British title in 2000, said the cuts did not faze either man.

"People have a tendency to panic when they see the blood, but not Ricky - he has been there before," says Graham.